As youth workers, we are people of action. We love big verbs, inspirational adjectives, and far-reaching slogans. We want young people who are on totally fire for God; we want to reach the ninety-nine, and we want to change the world more than we change our pants… and then we want to change it again.

None of this is necessarily bad—at all—but it comes down to how quickly do we want these things to happen, and what are the best ways of going about them.

The problem is a lot of youth ministry is a bit hit-and-run. We have a relatively short amount of time to spend with young people week-by-week, and youth workers don’t tend to last long in their jobs. Added to that, every conference we go to has an urgent, imperative tone — something that makes us feel we have to ‘fix’ every young person now before it’s too late! We are always one-generation away from losing young people entirely, right?

I wonder, however, if this youth worker diet of high anxious energy means that we sometimes inadvertently take a sledgehammer to young people when what we really need is a light touch over a longer period.

Sledgehammer youth work

When I talk about sledgehammer youth work, I’m not just talking about “hype”, although that’s certainly a symptom. I’m talking about the rough, often clumsy, and sometimes brutal ways that youth workers employ to convince young people to become Christians as soon as possible—and then live a narrowly framed Christian life. Here are a few examples of what I mean:

Talks

Our message planning often comes with subconsciously searching for ‘the tearjerker’. A metaphor, video clip, story, or testimony that’s likely to raise heart rates and provide an experience of high empathy—a moment which will maneuverer young people to place themselves in a story so much that they feel obliged to respond.

Think about how emotionally exhausted young people are at the end of a festival when they’ve had at least ten long talks just like this.

Apologetics

Rather than learning conversational good habits that facilitate healthy exploration, we learn rigid and uncompromising arguments that club young people over the head.

Unwittingly, our apologist position as “fact-giver-in-chief” comes with a few nasty side-effects. For instance, we unsettle their faith in other people who care about them, such as parents or teachers. This then makes them approach lessons or family time with a lot more suspicion than is naturally helpful. It can also furnish them with an arrogant air of superiority… or on the flip side, it can scare them out of asking questions or challenging you if they disagree.

Altar calls

I’m a youth evangelist, so I believe in the importance of facilitating ‘decision moments’ for young people. But if at every occasion we give one of these quote-unquote “alter call’s”, we make it an all-or-nothing, black-or-white, yes-or-no, now-or-never, tomorrow-you-might-wake-up-and-be-dead, experience, then are we truly sure that they’re meeting with Jesus, or just trying to avoid the alternative?

Long-term relationship decisions are considered, not impulsively jumped upon. I didn’t shotgun marry my wife, so why would we expect young people to shotgun the most important long-term relationship they’re ever going to have?

Moral teaching

One thing that’s most expected of us as youth workers (especially by parents) is teaching young people moral, right and ‘Christian’ ways to live. I believe it’s likely that, on average, Christian youth workers spend more time talking about sexuality, drugs, drink, media consumption choices, gender, and [insert other moral lifestyle standard here], than they do directly explaining the gospel of Jesus. That might be a bold thing to say, but it’s reflected in the many youth work resources that have been published since the early 1990s.

All these things are important to talk about, but the nature of youth ministry means that many, if not most, of the young people we work with haven’t yet established a lasting relationship with God yet, so why would we expect them to live like they’ve been full of the Holy Spirit for twenty years? Journeys towards holy living take time, grace, time, mercy, time, community, and time.

Is it as bad as all that?

For the last two years, I’ve been researching why young people leave Christian youth clubs. I’ve immersed myself in forums and groups of young people—and older people who were young people—that left Christian youth clubs and never came back.

There’s quite a large swath of ‘ex-Christian youth’ that have no voice in Christian youth work planning, because they are by nature outside of our spheres of influence. These are the young people who will never come to our events, because to do so would be coming back into a world they rejected.

There are many reasons these ex-Christian youth give for why they left youth clubs, but a few common themes emerge. (These will be the contents of an upcoming book for September 2022, so keep your eyes peeled!) In short, though, they say their youth workers were too dogmatic and sure of themselves, spent far too much time making them feel guilty for what they believed, and because they never felt truly safe to express themselves. They also said we were often too weird, creepy, and fascinated with sex—but that’s for another time… or for my book!

It’s not just ex-Christian youth that have a problem with sledgehammer youth ministry, though. This approach places the responsibility for young people’s faith squarely in the hands of the youth worker. The youth worker’s job becomes to conjure, create, and cultivate that faith, and then convince young people to accept it.

One of the very worst things we could do as youth workers is make our Christian youth so dependent on us to provide the fuel for their vulnerable and emerging faith that they never truly receive it for themselves.

It certainly feels to me like a lot of our youth work is geared towards short sharp calls to action and clumsily promoting a certain form of quick result moral living. Is this really the call of discipleship?

Light touch youth ministry

Light touch youth ministry buckles up for the long haul. And by the long haul, I don’t mean a year, I mean looking at growth pathways between the ages of zero and twenty-one. It requires us to be part of a much larger puzzle and to partner with parents, children’s workers, pastors, schools, councils, mental health groups, scout groups… whoever!… to be part of the tapestry of a growing young person’s life. We need to be better true networkers and team players.

Light touch youth ministry isn’t nervous when young people have bad theology either. Our job is not to fix young people’s thinking but to give them tools for their thinking to grow in a more mature way. For this to work, we need to become better at sharing our stories rather than force-feeding them, and then offering our suggestions rather than providing ultimatums.

Light touch youth ministry isn’t concerned with convincing young people of the truth but providing them with an alternative narrative to explore. In fact, I’d go as far to say that not once in the Bible are we told that it’s our job to convince anybody of anything! Our job is to tell the gospel, share our story, love young people, and always be prepared to give a reason for our hope.

Light touch youth ministry doesn’t need a young person to say “yes” right away. We must give young people permission to go away, reflect, and consider. A choice reflected on before it is acted on is more likely to last. This is about giving young people responsibility over their own faith right from the beginning and then getting out of the way once introductions are made. After some guidance, we need to let young people meet with Jesus on their terms, not ours.

Light touch youth ministry doesn’t demand immediate, physical action. There are people who say that if you can’t stand up and walk to the front to accept Jesus, then you’ll never be able to stand up for him in your Christian life. I am so offended by that idea. There is absolutely no link between being able to stand up and walk to the front of a room and being willing to serve and worship Jesus throughout your life. It’s a dumb suggestion, and all you’re doing by making it is providing a guilt-trip for certain personality types, and beginning a relationship with Jesus fuelled by adrenaline, or worse, fear, rather than love and joy.

Light touch youth ministry doesn’t ask for young people to be a completely different person overnight. The love of Jesus is transformational for sure, and some changes that come over young people are miraculous! But let’s not downplay the ultimate miraculous change being accepting him in the first place! Moral choices and lifestyle changes come from conviction, and that comes from the overflow of a loving and growing relationship with God. They don’t just happen immediately and legalistically because someone told you that’s what you’re supposed to do.

Light touch youth ministry isn’t afraid of open questions, long discussions, multiple opinions, changing ideas, genuine conversations, or vulnerable times of ‘I don’t know.’ A light touch youth minister doesn’t need all the answers to every question a young person has, they only need the answer for the reason for the hope that they themselves have.

Light touch youth ministry provides clear, consistently, gospel teaching. Not to convince a young person, but to offer them a clear alternative narrative to what they live with. Our job is to honestly and lovingly say what we believe and why.

Light touch youth ministry respects the journey, takes its time, truly empowers, gives responsibility, shares, offers, suggests, and walks with young people hoping if they accept Jesus, it will be real and lasting.

Light touch youth ministry isn’t afraid to take years to see fruit!

Caveat—don’t be shy!

A light touch is not a white flag of retreat. It’s not diluting, it’s not watering down, it’s not surrendering, and it’s not backing off on our passion. It’s simply being more respectful of the human beings that we’re sharing with.

A light touch approach shouldn’t make you shy about sharing all the specifics, the details, and the controversies of your faith. In fact, it should do exactly the opposite. You can be so much more of Christian if the young people you’re sharing with don’t feel like it threatens them every time you open your mouth.

So, youth workers, let’s put down the sledgehammer and take a lighter touch with our young people. Let’s take a lighter touch to our relationship building, our discussion habits, and our long-term investment in young people. My instinct is that we will be clearer about the gospel, more honest about what we’re inviting others into, and we will see a longer, deeper change in the young people we work with today.

Since I’ve embraced this, I’ve seen fewer large-scale dramatic moments, sure, but on the flip side I’ve seen far, far more growing, long-term, young disciples that I have confidence will continue to grow for years to come. I think this is worth it.